


Wildflowers

by friar



Series: Gravestones [1]
Category: Arc Rise Fantasia
Genre: Basically everyone is dead and Ryfia can't deal, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friar/pseuds/friar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryfia digs her hands into the dirt. Soon she feels her nails scraping against stone, pebbles and gravel packed in to keep the structure of the graveyard uniform, steady. She tears it away. Her nails bleed. But in the end, it will be worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wildflowers

**Author's Note:**

> Part one in a series of fics that will take place post-game, mainly dealing with how Ryfia and L'Arc handle the deaths of the party. Please note that I imagine post-game Fulheim to be a much more modern place!

She finds Alf’s grave first. It lays flat against the earth like the others, a cut out square of reflected light, beaming up and getting in her eyes. She looks back. There is a monument in the center of the complex, standing taller than the gates that guard it, towering over the barbed fencing. It’s smooth and simple, a flame of white stone, and she’s read that Alf put it there to commemorate the salvation of the world, to honor the fact that mankind now owns its own destiny. It never ceased to amaze her that Alf – lord, prince, king – chose to have his grave site not beneath that flame, not towering over the landscape. Instead he requested that, upon his death, he would rest forever in the same plot as those he once called friends. Or so Ryfia had read. L’Arc warned her to never, ever trust newspapers.

She stares back at its curves, the way the stone licks up and around and into the sky, towards the sun. Then she kneels before the grave and opens the wicker basket beside her. Inside is a small spade and hoe, a sealed bottle of clear water, and countless packets of seeds.

She begins her work with a song. It’s just a humming tune and it means nothing, unlike the songs of long ago. She no longer sings the hymns because they feel empty now, robbed of power and sent up to no one. While its better this way she still misses their words. She wishes she could feel their comfort again and not their edges, and more than anything she wishes to sing them one more time without ending up a blubbering mess. 

So she hums a different song. It has a stupid name and is ‘pop’, a new kind of music that makes her pull a face and flip off the radio. There is little subtlety¬ or strength of heart in such songs, but she still hums them, because strangely enough they comfort her now more than any church choir.

The dirt is soft. Pretty soon she is done digging holes, and has selected a yellow variety of large, ruffled flowers. She laughs. So Alf! Then she stops and feels her lip quiver a little. Straightening her back, she tucks it all away and rips open the seed packets. Three seeds per each three-inch deep hole, then refill with nutrient-rich soil, which she has also brought along (there was no way she would allow these flowers to be unhealthy. Unhealthy flowers tended to die).

Onto the next grave. It’s Niko’s. She stares hard for a while before getting down on her now dirt-stained knees. She repeats the process. Blue flowers. They will be ultra-cute.

Leslie’s grave gets pink flowers, which is a given, but also white. The pink will each have ten petals per blossom. The white will swoop up on one end and will be tremendously elegant. Roses for Rastan, of the darkish-purple variety, and for Serge she plants so many different colors that she worries it’s a bit too much. Then she stops and wipes a hand across her brow. It’s already mid-day, and the sun feels hotter than the morning air had led on. Feeling a bit guilty, she takes a swig of the water bottle.

There are too many graves. She looks around her and feels a small part of her chest crumple up and heave. Perhaps on another day she will return and finish the job, or maybe over a series of Sundays, each time bringing more exotic flowers? While it seems wrong to stop mid-mission, she gathers up her basket and gets up to leave.

A thought strikes her so forcibly that she wonders just who put it there. She stumbled back to Alf’s grave. There it is, next to Niko’s, shining innocently up at her (and blinding her even more). She looks to the right, into the paved pathway created for visitors to walk on. She looks back over to the next line of graves. Then she sinks down to her knees and starts to cry. She sniffles around for a couple moments, unsure why she’s crying. Yes, she has every reason to do so. But she has spent too long mentally preparing herself for this task. She has planned for emotions, enough to where she can hold them in, to some degree. 

But still – where could it be? Why wouldn’t Alf put Adele right beside him?

As she gets to her feet she starts to breath steadily again. She smooths her shirt down, gathers up the basket, and does not look around. She just leaves.

 

L’Arc looks at her as though she’s been in a wreck. He puts down his coffee, goes over, and starts to brush the dirt off her knees. They don’t speak for an entire minute. Then he gives her a good stern glare. “I told you, you should have waited for me.”

You will never go, she wants to say, but worries that it will sound bitter. It’s not bitter. She’s just become more realistic since she woke up.

L’Arc sits beside her and wraps his arms around her, which always makes her cry to begin with. In between she manages to ask him about the graves, in little broken whimpers. 

He gets really still, but instead of coldness he shrugs, and his voice sounds even. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll have something about it in the archives.”

Will you go with me? She wants to ask, but she knows so much better.


End file.
